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Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 02

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the second in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip

It’s not that fun to drive so far in one day. So, we cancelled our scheduled hotels in Rapid City, SD and in Madison, WI and adjusted our plan to get to OH from Tuesday to around Friday, which is when we intended to get there after making a swing to the East Coast on Wednesday-Thursday.

It helps to have booked the first few hotels in a chain that we have “status” in and are able to appeal to the hotel chain’s loyalty program for help with the “non”-refundable first nights.

Doubletree Grand Junction CO

The Doubletree was very comfortable and the cookies were great. We were well rested, after getting to the hotel at an ungodly hour of 4:00 am local time, (3:00 am biological time, since we crossed from Pacific into Mountain timezone in our drive), we slept in.

We didn’t start to roll out until around 2:13 PM

In looking at the dash and comparing it with the previous night’s dash, it looks like we didn’t have any vampire losses overnight in Grand Junction. We parked the car at 89 Rated miles, we rolled out at 89 Rated miles.

Grand Junction Supercharger

Since we were staying in a hotel six miles away from the supercharger, we decided to go straight to the hotel the previous night. Even if the car were to lose ten miles on vampire losses overnight, we would have been able to make it to the supercharger.

Our first supercharger stop in Colorado is located in the Mesa Mall. This was one of the first stops outside of California where we checked in on the beta version of the (now released) Teslarati App for the iPhone and there was already content there. (thanks to @DanielSparks for the content.)

Didn’t feel like shopping, so we didn’t really go into the mall. There was a Taco Bell and IHOP behind the chargers. If you’re visiting this location with kids, there is a Chuck E. Cheese just across the parking lot.

So we spent the time figuring out what we needed to adjust to get to OH by the Friday deadline. Where we wanted to be by the “end of the day”. Our original plan was to be in Rapid City, SD, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen, so we had to come up with a new plan.

By the time we rolled out, we figured to target Cheyenne, WY for tonight’s stop. We didn’t want to be in Denver as we figured Cheyenne was closer to where we wanted to be and lodging would probably be less expensive than Denver.

So, we headed off toward Cheyenne, WY… A much more manageable approximately 350 mile journey vs the much longer drive to Rapid City, SD or the 808 mile drive the night before.

Went by our hotel as we headed East.

Then the Colorado drive. The drive to Glenwood Springs is a fairly mild climb and through “Colorado Wine Country”. We didn’t stop to try any Colorado Wines, because, namely, we’re in a drive and drinking and driving doesn’t really mix well.

The drive was interesting, but not the most memorable one for Colorado, that’s upcoming.

Glenwood Springs Supercharger

We made it to the Glenwood Springs supercharger as the fourth car there…

We spoke with a local who just took delivery of an 85D a few months earlier and just getting a “top up” with his wife in between their kid’s Little League games and he was full of local information. There was another car that parked beside ours, but she took off soon after we got there.

The one car that hung out with us was an experienced Colorado owner that was on his way to Santa Barbara. He gave us a piece of advice that we’ve found to be invaluable since. We were discussing our relative difficulty of finding superchargers using Tesla’s navigation and he told us his trick for new charging locations. He turns on the satellite view, and zooms in. This gives him the perspective of what the area looks like from space and gives a better way of finding the superchargers with less challenge than using the map view.

The Glenwood Springs location is another location that had at least one hotel attached to it. So, if you need to rest on your journey, it is good to identify the superchargers with hotels next to it. Glenwood Springs has a Courtyard and a Residence Inn adjacent to it.

Additionally, you will note the huge cones that are at this location. Apparently this has been the only proven way to minimize supercharger ICEing. So, if you arrive at this location and the cones are in the way, do not fret. Chances are the superchargers are operational.

Before rolling off, the view of the mountain behind the Residence Inn is quite spectacular, so take the opportunity to look behind it. There is also a community garden that seemed to be well taken care off in that vicinity as well.

Off we go toward Silverthorne, CO. This drive was stunning not only in the natural beauty but also in the engineering that was executed to create the split highway with the upper level going Westbound and the lower level that was headed Eastbound.

Some of the Colorado cities and towns along the way were quite picturesque.

Additionally, there was still snow in the beginning of May! Yes, you read correctly, there is still snow on the ground.

One can still ski those runs, with beater skis, but still ski them.

Really beautiful snow covered Rockies!

And soon after that, we’re in Silverthorne.

Silverthorne Supercharger

Silverthorne is a different matter than Glenwood Springs. We arrived at this Outlet Mall location as the stores had either closed or were closing.

Another eight supercharger location at an outlet mall this time.

The outlet stores may be closed, but Chipotle is still open. So, if you need food, or other things, they’re normally open until late.

Here is the view of the superchargers from Chipotle. It’s an easy walk without snow or weather, but then again, I’m from Southern California, so not really the best judge of how far this walk will be in winter weather.

Heading into Cheyenne, Wyoming…

A really blurry Wyoming State Line. Probably a good idea to go to sleep when the state line looks this blurry.

Hampton Inn Cheyenne Wyoming

Checked into the hotel with 100 miles Rated Range. It’s amazing to get a 305 Wh per mile for the day through the Rockies. That’s better than what we get in SoCal without the elevation changes.

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Dennis

rEVolutionary armed with a Tesla Model S S85 and a Tesla Roadster, when his wife let's him borrow it. Formerly driving a BMW Active E (2012-Feb to 2014-Feb).
Dennis has been driving EVs since he found himself on the BMW Active E trials on February 2012. As a result of his involvement in the Active E program, he became Accidentally Environmental. Aside from this blog, he often tweets @dennis_p. When not driving, he can be found on the following Tesla/EV forums - teslamotorsclub.com, teslamotors.com, and model3ownersclub.com as AEdennis or on speakev.com as Dennis. In the interest of full disclosure, Dennis has an inherent bias toward electric vehicles and has an investment in and is LONG Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
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4 thoughts on “Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 02”

I almost commented after Day 01. Wow, 800+ miles in one day. My wife and I can’t do that now, if we ever could. I find the trip planning I do is now less about “can the car make it” and more about balancing our stops with 350-400 miles and a 7-8 hour day (with the odd longer day in there). Helps being retired doesn’t it!! Makes road trips pleasant without the larger return time worries. We’ve now decided on long trips to also plan max 3-4 days of travel, then pick somewhere to stay and explore the next 5-7 days. We found on previous trips that after we did stretches of 7 or more days in a row of a different hotel every night, that in itself was fatiguing even if the individual days weren’t overly aggressive. The Model S with supercharging has made road trips fun again.